RPG is a vast definition (in video gaming), I have seen many interpretations and many games labelled as "RPGs", I don't care what genre it is, I prefer WoW like it is now than in Vanilla/BC.

Challenges modes, Proving grounds endless mode, Brawler's guild, Timeless isle rares and Yaun'gols aren't nerfed to shit. Yes, they aren't extremely hard, but it will require time investment and skill, so you can't say that there is no challenge anymore.

Yes, my main interest in WoW are the raids, so I care mainly about raids. And there are a lot of fights in Heroic where you can wipe easily if one player makes a small mistake (Jin'rokh, Tortos, Durumu, Dark Animus, Lei shen, Malkorok, Spoils, Thok, Blackfuse, Garrosh). I don't care if there is a LFR / Flex / Normal mode that everybody did, what I care about is clearing challenging bosses with my friends. My main goal isn't to sit at Orgrimmar with my Heroic gear and mount so everybody envies me.

But guess what ? Blizzard is going to introduce mythic sets with unique style, mythic raiders will get their special set that the "slobs" won't have and will be able to afk in the main hubs.

I don't really care about mounts or achievements either, sure, I will probably end with the Garrosh mount, but it's not a goal for me, it's a bonus.

Because I quit after the second pointless expansion in a row during Cataclysm I can`t verify any of this. But what I can say is that the things you`re listing is a microscopic part of any MMORPG and of WoW. The problem is the entire game being nerfed, and not whether or not isolated pockets of game play may or may not be somewhat difficult still. And I know from experience that most of the "hard" things remaining in Wrath and Cataclysm were all really secretly pretty easy, because you outgeared everything very quickly. And that goes back to gear welfare and OP gear being too easily available.
If what you`re saying is correct and some of the new raid fights punish mistakes from single players that`s good. But it`s also the first time really since TBC, so about time. In WotLK in particular, half the raid could stand in fire and you`d still down most bosses.

But again, it`s not just raids. Like I said earlier, it takes five times as long to level to 60 in vanilla on a x1 private server than it does to level to 90 on a retail server. And that`s without having a level 90 character handed to you by Blizzard. It`s just totally unacceptable, and it attracts the worst kind of gamers. Pointless professions, pointless 5 man dungeons - where you used to learn how to play the game in classic and TBC -, flying mounts removing WPVP and on and on. And the things that haven`t been nerfed have been made "convenient" so nobody ever has to put any effort in to do anything. And even if the raids were now made suitably hard again they`ve still been nerfed because you don`t need to farm for them anymore. And this is not MMORPG, whether you like it or not, and should stop marketing itself as one.

Because I quit after the second pointless expansion in a row during Cataclysm I can`t verify any of this. But what I can say is that the things you`re listing is a microscopic part of any MMORPG and of WoW. The problem is the entire game being nerfed, and not whether or not isolated pockets of game play may or may not be somewhat difficult still. And I know from experience that most of the "hard" things remaining in Wrath and Cataclysm were all really secretly pretty easy, because you outgeared everything very quickly. And that goes back to gear welfare and OP gear being too easily available.
If what you`re saying is correct and some of the new raid fights punish mistakes from single players that`s good. But it`s also the first time really since TBC, so about time. In WotLK in particular, half the raid could stand in fire and you`d still down most bosses.

But again, it`s not just raids. Like I said earlier, it takes five times as long to level to 60 in vanilla on a x1 private server than it does to level to 90 on a retail server. And that`s without having a level 90 character handed to you by Blizzard. It`s just totally unacceptable, and it attracts the worst kind of gamers. Pointless professions, pointless 5 man dungeons - where you used to learn how to play the game in classic and TBC -, flying mounts removing WPVP and on and on. And the things that haven`t been nerfed have been made "convenient" so nobody ever has to put any effort in to do anything. And even if the raids were now made suitably hard again they`ve still been nerfed because you don`t need to farm for them anymore. And this is not MMORPG, whether you like it or not, and should stop marketing itself as one.

Indeed leveling is superbooring now that you level too fast... Which is annoying cuz I used to enjoy leveling slow... :/

Primo, Enhancement Shaman of Darksorrow who had the hand of Ragnaros... > any dps
The windfury was sick as fuck... I'm telling you

There was a lot of shadowpriest and fury warriors too, I knew a good balance druid... The reason why druids were playing healers or priest playing healers is simply because: Makes don't wanna trade gear with priests, hunters shouldn't have to fight over gear with a shaman and druids shouldn't have to fight over gear with a rogue... However... There was plenty of people on my realm playing shadow, feral, elemental an such...

That one item which btw was rare did make shamans have great BURST for a time bit it was not as good DPS as other classes sadly. Rogues in t2 and above gear destroyed enhancement on DPS and hand of rag slowly lost its edge. If you were in a serious raiding guild who wanted to compete it was healing for druids shamans and priests. We got that fixed in the pre TBC patch and the hybrid roles became a lot better at dps and buffing. I know some guilds who let people do w/e specs they wanted their guilds never got far sadly. The best thing that happened was the day Hybrids got some buffs then in Wrath it all got a level playing field.

Because I quit after the second pointless expansion in a row during Cataclysm I can`t verify any of this. But what I can say is that the things you`re listing is a microscopic part of any MMORPG and of WoW. The problem is the entire game being nerfed, and not whether or not isolated pockets of game play may or may not be somewhat difficult still. And I know from experience that most of the "hard" things remaining in Wrath and Cataclysm were all really secretly pretty easy, because you outgeared everything very quickly. And that goes back to gear welfare and OP gear being too easily available.
If what you`re saying is correct and some of the new raid fights punish mistakes from single players that`s good. But it`s also the first time really since TBC, so about time. In WotLK in particular, half the raid could stand in fire and you`d still down most bosses.

But again, it`s not just raids. Like I said earlier, it takes five times as long to level to 60 in vanilla on a x1 private server than it does to level to 90 on a retail server. And that`s without having a level 90 character handed to you by Blizzard. It`s just totally unacceptable, and it attracts the worst kind of gamers. Pointless professions, pointless 5 man dungeons - where you used to learn how to play the game in classic and TBC -, flying mounts removing WPVP and on and on. And the things that haven`t been nerfed have been made "convenient" so nobody ever has to put any effort in to do anything. And even if the raids were now made suitably hard again they`ve still been nerfed because you don`t need to farm for them anymore. And this is not MMORPG, whether you like it or not, and should stop marketing itself as one.

Yes, if you like hard leveling, WoW isn't the perfect game for you. If you want a game where everything is challenging and every decision is important, there are other games for that.

Again, I don't care how they call the game, MMORPG, MMOACTION or whatever, I care about the features of the game, and there are enough WoW features to keep me playing.

alright, tbh... i don't even care if it's hard or not... i still want the community to go back to the same it was in vanilla/tbc. before Crossrealm was invented.
i hate crossrealm :3

The community is the same now as it was back then.

The biggest difference is how many people you now see in the game and how much more popular things like forums are. Originally, you only saw people on your server and even then, there were people you would never want to play with. The same can be said for every server. Now, you see more of these people than ever before since a lot of group stuff is cross realm. Cross realm didn't make people suddenly become terrible people. The people that were like that in the first place stayed the same. There is just a higher amount of them that you have the possibility of meeting.

All these horror stories of LFD/LFR always baffle me because I might get 1 bad experience for ever 50 good ones. Most people will only ever remember that 1 and easily forget the other 49 runs.

Yes, if you like hard leveling, WoW isn't the perfect game for you. If you want a game where everything is challenging and every decision is important, there are other games for that.

Again, I don't care how they call the game, MMORPG, MMOACTION or whatever, I care about the features of the game, and there are enough WoW features to keep me playing.

Right, so now that the casual carebears have taken over the game , WoW isn't the game for me, got it. I think I'll come move into your house and say if you don't like me there then this house isn't for you.
Not a perfect example but you get the idea,

Yes, if you like hard leveling, WoW isn't the perfect game for you. If you want a game where everything is challenging and every decision is important, there are other games for that.

Again, I don't care how they call the game, MMORPG, MMOACTION or whatever, I care about the features of the game, and there are enough WoW features to keep me playing.

Again, it`s not just the leveling. It`s everything. When I list all the things that have been wrecked, nerfed and trivialized I get accused of writing "essays" and when I list an example like this, people pretend the example is the only thing that`s wrong.
Let me give you another example anyway: in WotLK the harvesting time for herbs and ore was reduced from five seconds (It think. Unless it was even longer. I can`t find any info and can`t remember exactly.) to two seconds.
Respawn of nodes had already been nerfed at least twice during classic and TBC, and multiple nodes for ore was removed as well. Why was all this done? Who in the world was bothered enough by this to complain that harvesting was "too hard"? I had never before heard anybody complain about it, never read a single post complaining about it on the forums, yet Blizzard nerfed the entire thing to shit. Yes, to shit. When combined with the introduction of flying mounts this made farming mats trivial, when it used to be a risky and time-consuming endeavor, likely to get you embroiled in genuine, and usually vicious, PVP. Nothing like competing for nodes with an evenly matched enemy, when both are as desperate to get their mats farmed. In fact, the main reason I had to learn how to PVP originally was that I absolutely had to farm herbs to be able to raid. And to be able to farm herbs I absolutely had to learn how to defend myself. And this then made both farming and PVP meaningful, rather than some trivial afterthought as it has been since WotLK.
So a few nerfs and a helping of convenience and an entire part of the game was wrecked. And it`s one example of hundreds and hundreds, because everything has been nerfed. Usually over and over and over again. What an MMORPG needs more than anything is a persistent world. You cannot continually have challenging efforts be made pointless by nerfs. Someone has spent weeks and months working the hard content, only to have their efforts turned to nothing by nerfs, which make people able to do the same thing you have done in one tenth the time or less. The reason for this is that nothing has meaning in such a game, and there`s no incentive for long term effort of any kind. In fact it is being actively discouraged by Blizzard and has been for many years.

Again, it`s not just the leveling. It`s everything. When I list all the things that have been wrecked, nerfed and trivialized I get accused of writing "essays" and when I list an example like this, people pretend the example is the only thing that`s wrong.
Let me give you another example anyway: in WotLK the harvesting time for herbs and ore was reduced from five seconds (It think. Unless it was even longer. I can`t find any info and can`t remember exactly.) to two seconds.
Respawn of nodes had already been nerfed at least twice during classic and TBC, and multiple nodes for ore was removed as well. Why was all this done? Who in the world was bothered enough by this to complain that harvesting was "too hard"? I had never before heard anybody complain about it, never read a single post complaining about it on the forums, yet Blizzard nerfed the entire thing to shit. Yes, to shit. When combined with the introduction of flying mounts this made farming mats trivial, when it used to be a risky and time-consuming endeavor, likely to get you embroiled in genuine, and usually vicious, PVP. Nothing like competing for nodes with an evenly matched enemy, when both are as desperate to get their mats farmed. In fact, the main reason I had to learn how to PVP originally was that I absolutely had to farm herbs to be able to raid. And to be able to farm herbs I absolutely had to learn how to defend myself. And this then made both farming and PVP meaningful, rather than some trivial afterthought as it has been since WotLK.
So a few nerfs and a helping of convenience and an entire part of the game was wrecked. And it`s one example of hundreds and hundreds, because everything has been nerfed. Usually over and over and over again. What and MMORPG needs more than anything is a persistent world. You cannot continually have challenging efforts be made pointless by nerfs. Someone has spent weeks and months working the hard content, only to have their efforts turned to nothing by nerfs, which make people able to do the same thing you have done in one tenth the time or less. The reason for this is that nothing has meaning in such a game, and there`s no incentive for long term effort of any kind. In fact it is being actively discouraged by Blizzard and has been for many years.

Indeed leveling is superbooring now that you level too fast... Which is annoying cuz I used to enjoy leveling slow... :/

Levelling was always part of the game up to the point in Wrath when they 'streamlined' questing. Now its just a hinderance to everyone cos everyone wants to be at max level cos thats where the game really is. Thats by design.

Basically, the from level 1 to max used to be 'adventuring' and 'exploring' and now its called 'levelling'. That speaks volumes about just how differently that part of the game functions in the big scheme of things... its position in the game is different now.

For those who keep saying something is missing, this is my humble opinion on the matter as well as speculation as to the cause.

We are many years out from the RTS games and everything was based on them in WoW, that story is over, time and tales have moved forward.

I honestly believe both longtime players and the game as well, have been changing and evolving with the times. Folks who used to sit and spend 100+ hours a month raiding have had changes in life and perspective, they have moved on in life and to different types of games, or just look at wow as reading the same favorite book over and over. The problem with the latter is that , the book too has evolved and changed. While the engine may be old, the systems have evolved making the game less hassle free to learn, has had massive quality of life improvements, and has moved on from vanilla's plotlines. To the same old book/game after this many years is only fooling yourself.

To those who treat it like a book they love, mentally they lay claim to it, they have their own head canons, their own ways they feel things should always be. It's like all those people who fell in love with the characters and mythos of Harry Potter, some just cannot handle Dumbledore having been a closeted gay man. But guess what? He was. Why? Because his creator deemed it so. Same with WoW why the changes, why the re-vamps, why the changes to known lore.. because WoW is a living breathing universe, and it's creators wish to see things update and things to change. We are not the gods in control of this universe, Blizzard are.

What you remember as being it's "Spark", is just that a memory of your own. For millions of others, it may be a relief that the game has moved forward, and feels less like a career and more like what it is ,a video game. WoW has lost nothing, other than buggy mechanics, incomplete lore, its lack of inaccessibility to the masses, and seriously uggo character models. Maybe besides the memory you miss is the feeling of being elite in gaming circles because you played and survived the clunky monstrosity WoW used to be, and felt you were it's gatekeeper. Who knows? But welcome to WoW of 2014 still alive, still kickin ass, and with an updated player base.

It's full of spark, but maybe, your spark plugs need changing with the times.

While I am sure there are people out there who find picking flowers and rocks fun, I have personally never met one. If gathering is tedious, then you basically have to treat WoW like a job, and why in the world would anyone get off work and want to play a game that absolutely forces you to do tedious tasks before you can actually play the game? That's a pretty crappy business model, actually.

Which brings me to leveling. Blizzard has made a system to where the vast majority of the game is at endgame and thus leveling is primarily a barrier to playing the game. I would love to see a scaling system where if, say, a max level character attacks Thrallmar, his effective power is brought down to the zone's level. That way, even though he has a full load of abilities, a group of 60's could still take him down. I couldn't beat Tyson in a fistfight but I guarantee ten of me at once could, and it should be no different in game. It would make all zones relevant, reduce mindless ganking, allow max level players to group with low level friends, etc. They could even scale raids the same way, so level 90s could raid ICC at appropriate difficulties and give players the full range of PVE content to choose from.

Everything in the OP was bang on, WoW lost it's spark after WOTLK when pleasing the mass market overtook sustaining an RPG game. So I say come and enjoy a bit of fun on the dark side, and see if it's you thats changed.
Come and see what would happen is you really could rewind the clock back to Burning Crusade, would you enjoy it as much as you think you would?

I know the answer for me is that the game changed. I still have an account on retail, but along side this I play on 'the dark side' and honestly WoD is going to have to be amazing for me to not pack my stuff up and leave the legit servers for good.

I know that this comment will be deleted (although not before they have a good laugh at the video which I'm sure everyone here will fucking lol to pieces over!)

But the best thing Blizzard could ever do is start opening up 1.12.1, 2.4.3 and 3.3.1 servers and put all the private servers out of business. I'd love them to do this, but I can't see it happening. As long as mods keep deleting comments like this though, demand wont have a chance to build up.

The biggest difference is how many people you now see in the game and how much more popular things like forums are. Originally, you only saw people on your server and even then, there were people you would never want to play with. The same can be said for every server. Now, you see more of these people than ever before since a lot of group stuff is cross realm. Cross realm didn't make people suddenly become terrible people. The people that were like that in the first place stayed the same. There is just a higher amount of them that you have the possibility of meeting.

All these horror stories of LFD/LFR always baffle me because I might get 1 bad experience for ever 50 good ones. Most people will only ever remember that 1 and easily forget the other 49 runs.

Anyway, the community was awful then, it's awful now.

I've tried to state this many times over the years and each time it ends up being ignored, much like this one has so far. People don't have a response for logic, they wait and hand pick the opinionated posts in order to launch into these subjective battles over who had the more accurate experience.

I've been around MMOs for a smidge over 13 years now. If there's any spark that's been lost in your experience, OP, it's been lost within yourself. The game doesn't feel the same to you because of countless factors, only a handful of which have anything to directly do with the progression of the game itself and more of your perspective of those changes and your current feelings for the game.

Personally, if I felt as strongly against the current state of ANYTHING as the OP and a few others obviously do, I would have moved on ages ago, as I have with games (and anything else) in the past.

Other than a futile, monotonous semantics battle, I'm not even sure where this thread is going any more.

It was fun for its time. But like I said I would never want to go back to paying thousands of gold for flying, spam endlessly for pugs to do heroics or be stuck doing Kara when guilds were doing BT and SWP.